


Soft Loki, Sleepy Loki, Little Ball of Cuddles

by AtypicalOwl



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Loki is asleep for most of this, oh and maybe a little bit of half-angsty feels at the end, plenty of ooc, pure fluff, so fluffy you could stuff a plushie with it, vague and lampshaded Loki redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 01:31:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtypicalOwl/pseuds/AtypicalOwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki sleepwalks. He has a tendency to end up sleeping in other people's beds. The Avengers learn to live with this fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sleepy Loki Being Cute

Natasha sighed and shifted in her sleep. After a long day of kicking ass and saving the world, there was nothing quite like a soft bed, warm, cozy blankets, and a firm arm around your waist.

Except for one tiny problem: she had gone to bed alone.

Her brain snapped awake, and it was only her extensive training that kept her eyes shut, body still, and her breathing even. Who was that in her bed with her?

The arm was too thin to be Clint. Too long to be Tony. And she highly doubted Thor, Steve, or Bruce would sneak into her room for snuggles (or even be able to without waking her).  
She cracked an eye open, and took a look at the hand. Pale, almost delicate. And the arm it was attached to was covered in a green and gold sleeve. (and fuck, how had her own hand ended up covering that cool, foreign one?)

Okay. So, apparently, she was being spooned by none other than the god of mischief himself, Loki.

Her free arm was stretched out under the pillow. She twitched her fingers slightly, searching under the down and plush fabric for one of the knives Tony so often teased her for sleeping with. Her fingers brushed the cold hilt, and--

Loki shifted.

Natasha froze.

She was in the arms of the freaking demigod who just about destroyed the city, brainwashed her partner, led an alien invasion, and tried to kill them all. Not necessarily in that order. Very not good.

The arm around her waist tightened slightly, and Natasha gripped the knife, painfully aware the small blade wouldn't be much good against magic and superhuman strength and whatever else the demigod had up his sleeve. Could she get to the gun she had stashed in the headboard without waking him? She could certainly try.

Loki grunted, and. Oh my god, did he just. Nuzzle. Her. Neck.

Okay. So. Spooning with a cuddly, asleep, homicidal demigod. Who apparently has a really cold nose. Not how she had pictured her night going.

A homicidal demigod who was snoring slightly. And putting the whole Chitauri Invasion of New York Thing aside temporarily, it was a damned cute sound. Kind of like something you'd hear in a Youtube video of a sleeping baby alpaca or something.

Not that she looked up sleeping baby alpacas.

But still. She was an Avenger. She had principles. And those principles included not being spooned by supervillains.

And he had started snoring a bit louder. From baby alpaca to more like a St. Bernard. Natasha didn't tolerate snoring in any of her bedmates, evil or no (Clint had learned very quickly to sleep on his side).

Bracing herself for what might happen, she lifted the hand that had been resting on his, and (lightlycarefullyohgoddon'tpisshimoff) elbowed him in the ribs, like she might Clint if he started sleep-mumbling in her ear.

She held her breath.

Loki shifted, mumbled "sorry" into her hair, and fell back asleep, snoring less like a St Bernard but still not the baby alpaca snore.

Okay. So, maybe he wasn't going to murder her in his sleep (was that even a thing? Like, the opposite of getting murdered in your sleep? Sleep-walking only with more murdering?)

She shifted a little, wiggling her legs out from under his. Man, Loki really goes all-out with his cuddling (and was he wearing silk pajamas or something? At least he wasn't naked). Just as softly as the elbow to his ribs, she kicked his shin with her heel, and held her breath again.

His leg twitched, he pulled her a little closer, and the snoring stopped.

Natasha supposed she should be more worried. More freaked out. Or even more annoyed that enemy number one had somehow snuck into her room and started cuddling her without her noticing (because seriously, what did that say about her skills if he could do that? Or his, for that matter?).

But it was late, and that whole thing with the evil robots earlier really had taken it out of her. JARVIS would alert the others if there was a threat, right? And, Loki really wasn't that bad of a cuddler. He wasn't hogging all the blankets, he was spooning without awkward knee-poking or being wrapped unpleasantly around her, and, best part, he wasn't trying to kill her.

The baby alpaca snore started up again. That was the last straw.

Natasha let herself drift into a light sleep. He wasn't overtly trying to kill her or brainwash her. And if he was asleep here, he wasn't trying to kill or brainwash anyone else. She could deal with it in the morning. Her hand never left the knife, though.

She needn't have bothered. Her bed was empty when she woke up the next day.

She didn't mention it to any of the others.

And it was all kind of a moot point when Loki fought on their side against some crazy sorceress who was trying to pull the usual crazy magic shit against their world, and then he kind of stuck around after and had a chance to explain the whole Tessarect's Influence/Chitauri's Manipulation/Daddy Didn't Love Me Thing (which, to her, sounded a bit like thin excuses, but hey, they had enough crazy magic people to deal with on a weekly basis so one less crazy magic person trying to kill them was okay). So she didn't bring it up.

 

* * *

 

Upon waking to find one very asleep, very innocent-looking, and _very clingy_ God of Mischief in his bed, Steve turned a shade of red that, when combined with his blue pajamas, could have allowed him to go save the world as Captain America without bothering to put on his uniform.

He extracted himself from Loki's grip with some difficulty (and how the heck did he get that kind of death grip on Steve's arm? Yes he was a superstrong alien, but seriously, he shouldn't be that strong in his sleep), heaved Loki over his shoulders in a fireman's carry, and unceremoniously dumped him on the couch in the communal living room.

The next day, Steve came into the kitchen and found Loki chugging some kind of fancy coffee drink he could neither remember, pronounce, or hope to make on Stark's crazy complex machine. None of the others were up yet, so he seized the opportunity to state his question bluntly: “Why were you in my bed last night?”

Loki did not verbally respond, though he may or may not have choked slightly on his marbled half-soy hazlenut mocha-frappa-latte-ciino-thing. He swept out of the room, carefully avoiding looking anywhere in Steve's direction.

Steve shrugged, poured himself a cup of coffee from the simple drip-brew machine on the counter, and resolved himself to living with insane aliens.

 

* * *

 

Bruce wasn't sure what woke him up. Maybe it was something creaking in the tower? The heating? Or did he just twitch in his sleep and wake himself up?

But, no. It wasn't any of those things. Because a soft breath on his cheek sent a chill through every nerve in his face.

Bruce's eyes shot open, only to see the ceiling. He tilted his head to the side slowly, eyes searching for his unknown companion.

A pale face, eerily colorless in the blue nightlight plugged into the far wall. A pale, narrow face, framed in black hair, and OSHIT.

Loki.

Bruce's heart started pounding in his chest (because OHCRAPLOKI), and a cold sweat broke out over him. He closed his eyes again, blocking out the image of the peacefully sleeping figure next to him.

Loki. In his bed. Curled up next to him. Fast asleep. What the heck?

Not all of the anxiety was his. He could feel someone else taking notice, straining to get loose. Deep breath in through the nose, deep breath out through the mouth. Or was it supposed to be the other way around? Darnit, he really could not think at his best when he was woken up in the middle of the night by a somnambulist god who somehow ended up in his bed!

Whether it was supposed to be through the nose or mouth, the deep breathing worked, and his heart slowed. With the immediate green threat mitigated, he could turn his attention to the other green threat at hand. When had he even begun to think of them as the green threats? He was going to have to have a word with whoever at S.H.I.E.L.D. came up with “Code Green-Purple” and “Code Green-Gold” to describe incidents with the Other Guy and Loki, respectively. Though he had to admit that “Code Pikachu” for Thor accidentally hitting the tower with lightning was kind of funny.

But was there really a threat? Maybe Loki just got too cold in his room or something. Goodness knows the guy always had cold hands, and he wouldn't put it past Tony to have messed with the AC in his section of the tower. No one really liked Loki yet, Bruce included, but there wasn't any hostility left in his heart.

Bruce's bed was huge, a specially made monstrosity that was way more than king size, and steel-reinforced just in case of heart-racing nightmares. IKEA stuff just can't hold up to a rampaging green monster, apparently. There was plenty of room here for two people.

So he slipped out of bed, wincing a bit at the cold floor (because while Tony had taken care of the carpet replacement after the last Incident, Bruce still didn't want him paying to replace it every time Someone got the midnight urge to go on a ripping spree), tiptoed around the foot of the bed, and after far too much walking to go around a mattress, got under the covers on the other side. There was probably enough room between him and Loki for Steve to stretch out lengthwise. That would do. Let the guy have a good night's sleep on the other side of a warm bed. He wasn't being a bother.

Of course, when he woke up again a few hours later, with Loki's back pressed up against his and a soft, almost squeaky snore reaching his ears, Bruce wasn't so inclined to be generous with his bed's real estate. It took longer to fight the Other Guy down that time, probably because of the proximity (and wasn't that ridiculous, how much difference a few inches could make? It wasn't this bad when Loki was next to him, why was it so bad when he was touching him?)

Bruce sighed, starting to contemplate ways he could wake Loki up and kick him out without getting himself magicked or getting too stressed.

A flash of lightning lit the room, and Bruce became aware that rain had been pounding on the windows this whole time, the white noise fading into the background. Moments later, a thunderclap boomed, a little close for comfort.

Loki flinched, and shuddered briefly before stilling again.

Of course.

The thunderstorm had probably been raging all night. And Loki, though he would never admit it out loud, probably doesn't like thunder that much, considering who his brother is. No one can make much sense of Thor and Loki's family issues, not even Thor and Loki, and the truce between brothers has been uneasy since Loki started living with the Avengers.

Those poor kids. If only there were a therapist that would actually work with them without being scared off or threatened with bodily harm within the first ten minutes.

Bruce knew what it's like to seek comfort when you're scared, whether it's of the dark, the monsters in the closet, or the storm raging outside. He also knew what it's like when you can't, because you're viewed as a monster.

So, he let Loki sleep.

And if he shifted a little bit closer to Loki when the thunder booms, well, who's to say he didn't need a little comfort too?

 

* * *

 

Bruce handed Loki a plate of fresh pancakes when he stumbled into the kitchen the next morning. Loki took them with a nod and a grunt, before heading straight for the ridiculously complicated coffee machine.

It would have set the scene for a perfect, heartwarming bonding moment, if Tony hadn't chosen that day, and that moment, to reveal his pancake-making robot.

It worked about as well as Dummy and Butterfingers, minus the artificial intelligence.

They all agreed to never speak of the Pancake Incident again.

 

* * *

 

At some point, Bruce brought the issue up with Thor, saying that he had found Loki fast asleep in his room one night, glossing over the details of the storm.

Thor sighed and explained that Loki had many issues with sleepwalking in childhood, mostly in times of stress. Exams, bullying, and yes, storms. They all made Loki wander Asgard unconsciously at night, waking up in the oddest of places. Cold fireplaces. The palace stables. On top of the roof, once or twice. And most commonly, other people's bedrooms. It was the subject of scandalous gossip for weeks after he woke up with Sif.

Doubly so after he woke up with Fandral.

Loki put a magical lock on his own door after he interrupted Frigga and Odin in the midst of an attempt at a third son. Thor did not know how long Loki's sleepwalking problems persisted after that, because Loki was obviously unable to venture far if they did.

Bruce thanked Thor for the explanation, and discreetly passed it on to his fellow teammates, just in case they ended up with an involuntary bedmate.  

 

* * *

 

Clint wasn't even sure how Loki made it up there. He was sorely tempted to plant his foot in the dozing god's back and give a firm push, just to see if he bounced. After all, the whole "hey the guy who brainwashed you is good now and moving in, m'kay?" thing still didn't sit well with him, despite the uneasy truce. Some of the others even seemed to be forming somewhat of a friendship with Loki (especially after what happened with the pancakes the other day). But come on people! The guy had destroyed half the city, no matter what excuses he made!

Still, he kind of had to give the guy props for making it up two ladders, across a catwalk, and settling himself in a area with less square footage than an average twin sized bed without waking himself up or alerting Clint to his presence.

So, Clint curled back up and rolled over to drift into an uneasy sleep, with Loki on the other side of his nest (but not before snapping a few pictures of Loki in the fetal position that he was sure would be fantastic Photoshop fodder at a later date).  

 

* * *

 

 

 “Get the hell out of my office. I don't care if you've used up all your funky magical energy fighting that Doom guy for the 7463rd time. You get your ass off my couch. NOW!”

Loki had no time to say anything in his defense before the door to Fury's office slammed in his face.

 

* * *

 

Everyone was surprised when Fury revealed Coulson had survived. That is to say, Tony punched Fury, Clint cried unashamedly, Natasha asked Tony to let her have a piece of Fury, Steve immediately hugged Coulson, then worried that he was aggravating his injuries (which were actually all healed, because apparently magic alien tech is good for something after all), Thor cheered and accidentally struck the Empire State Building with lightning a couple of times, and Loki looked like he was going to throw up.

Later, after the “We're So Glad You're Not Dead” party, after half the Avengers were passed out, drunk (and whose idea was it to have Thor bring a few barrels of mead?), and the remaining Avengers had gone to bed, Loki approached Coulson and they had a quiet discussion, over a bottle of brandy that Loki swiped from one of Stark's stashes.

Coulson had read the reports of what happened while he was recovering. About Loki's redemption and the factors that had led him to be on the “Destroy New York” side to begin with. And he had been satisfied with what they said. But he let Loki explain anyway, revealing details that had never been in any report. About the specifics of what the Chitauri had done. About the Tessarect, and what it told him. And when hours had passed, the sun was coming up, and the bottle was empty, Loki offered a quiet apology, never expecting it to be accepted.

It was.

 

* * *

 

Tony was _tired._

There had been no attack by Doom that day. No crazy bank robberies. No freaky magical alien stuff (other than the usual stuff Loki did because he was too lazy to make his coffee by hand after he figured out he could work the machine remotely, with magic). No, what had happened was much worse.

The Avengers got pressured into attending a child's birthday party.

No, attending was the wrong word.

They were _the entertainment_ at a child's birthday party.

The brat was the son of some government official, and the Avengers were just his favorite people _ever_ , and it would mean _so much_ if he could meet his heroes and get their autographs and take endless pictures with them and have Loki do some illusions for them to fight so the kid could get a hero show without being in any actual danger (and oh yeah the kid's father has influence over some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s funding so attending is mandatory if you want to keep your jobs) and _damn,_ Tony would rather have taken on a thousand Doombots than spent another second with five kids using him as a jungle gym.

So, it was with great pleasure that he collapsed face-first into bed that night and fell promptly asleep. After a long day of dealing with snotty, spoiled brats, there was nothing nicer than a shot before bed, a soft mattress, silk sheets, a warm and expensive down comforter, and someone holding him close.

Wait, what the hell?

Tony's eyes flew open to confirm that, yes, there was an arm wrapped around his middle, and ohfuck it was _too damn close_ to his arc reactor and _who the fuck was even in bed with him Pepper is out of town and I swear to God Clint if this is payback for what happened with the pancake batter I am gonna..._

_Apparently have a complete meltdown because who knew a cute little snore like that could be so damn disarming?_

He nudged the arm a little lower, and the cool palm rested just above his navel rather than his chest. Okay. Freakout issue #1 solved.

So, who is that arm attached to?

Pale hand. Skinny-ass arm. Gold and green silk Pjs. Yup, that's Loki. And here Tony had thought that Bruce was kidding about Thor telling him Loki sleepwalks (and wasn't that just a game of Telephone? All it needed was Steve mangling some 21st century expression and it would be complete)

So. Yeah. Loki spooning Tony. That's a thing that was happening, apparently.

And apparently another thing that was happening was Tony carefully rolling over to wrap his arms around Loki and fall back asleep. He could give any number of reasons for it. One, he was, as everyone absolutely loved to remind him, a complete man-whore. Two, despite the whole man-whore thing, he was also a complete cuddle monster. Three, Tony had learned a bit about Loki's past and his daddy issues and stuff and he could totally relate. And Four, Loki's hand kept traveling back up for some reason (if you were in bed with Tony Stark, wouldn't your hand be going down?), and it was much less freaky to have a hand on his back than a hand on his chest and arc reactor.

 

* * *

 

A year and some months after The Whole Loki Redemption Thing, as they were prone to call it, the team, which now included Loki as more than just a footnote, was flying back home after dealing with, no kidding, hippie pot spiders in Oregon. And not even the fun kind of pot, either. They were literal spiders that lived in old saucepans and vases and stuff that talked like hippies and attacked like a guerrilla force.

Yeah. It had been a very weird day.

Everyone was completely bushed. Clint was using Natasha as a pillow, and she didn't seem to mind because she was equally asleep, Steve was dozing near the front of the plane, Tony and Pepper were cuddling, Thor was flying home via hammer, and somehow in the middle of all of it, Loki ended up in the seat next to Coulson.

Coulson was in the window seat, looking out at the ground crawling beneath them and wondering how much longer it would be until they landed and he could start the paperwork, when he felt a weight lean on him. He glanced over to see Loki, fast asleep, slumped sideways in his seat, and snoring on his shoulder.

Poor guy had done most of the work once they realized freezing spells worked the best on the weird cookware arachnids. And only a few of the Avengers knew why Loki got that twisted-up look on his face when he was casting said freezing spells. Guy did _not_ have a good history with ice, that was for sure.

Just as Coulson was resolving himself to put up with the invasion of personal space, the plane hit a pocket of turbulence, and Loki jolted awake. He sat up straight and looked sideways at Coulson, freezing in place, not even breathing.

Coulson made a mental note that they would have to work on the crippling residual guilt one of these days. Loki looked like he was terrified Coulson was going to kick his ass.

Instead, Coulson shrugged, said “I don't blame you, this suit _does_ have ridiculously plush shoulder pads,” and went to looking back out the window.

Within minutes, Loki had relaxed and fallen back asleep, and once again, his head dropped onto Coulson's shoulder. He didn't wake up until Tony “accidentally” dropped his carry-on bag on Loki's feet when they were deplaning.

 

* * *

 

When Loki showed up while Tony and Pepper were cuddling one night (surprisingly, he managed to pick a night they _were_ just cuddling) and climbed into bed with them, Pepper nearly woke him up with her squeak of alarm.

Tony, half asleep, mumbled a quick explanation to Pepper of the Sleep Walking Thing, because apparently she hadn't heard of it until that moment. She seemed skeptical, but quickly melted once what she later dubbed the “cutest snore in the world” started up.

Tony's bed wasn't quite as big as Bruce's, but it still had plenty of room for three people to drift into blissful, cuddly sleep.

 

* * *

 

But the one person Loki never sleepwalks to is Thor. In fact, he hardly seems to sleepwalk when he is near. True, storms worsen the sleepwalking, whether they are natural or hammer-induced, but Thor's actual physical presence in the tower curtails it completely. Loki shies away when Thor checks in on him at night, the way he used to check in when they were children. And after the magical zaps Thor received, he quickly learned to never comfort Loki in a nightmare by stroking his hair or back.

Jane suggested it might be because Thor is practically a walking Tesla coil with the amount of static electricity he seems to carry naturally. Maybe Loki just doesn't like getting zapped? After all, Jane does tend to douse Thor in foul-smelling Static Guard every time they meet. The spray makes Thor sneeze, and though he humors Jane and visits Loki once more, covered in the stuff, he leaves cradling his hand from where Loki lashed out half-consciously.

Thor is not an idiot. He knows that static electricity is not the reason his brother seeks comfort with every Avenger except for him.


	2. The Pancake Incident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Vague and Mysterious Pancake Incident is (partially) revealed!

The pancake incident occurred roughly two months after Loki's redemption and subsequent move into Avengers Tower. The Avengers seem to have taken a vow of silence about it, because details are sparse. What is known is that it began during breakfast on an ordinary Tuesday. It involved Tony Stark's prototype pancake-making robot, several pounds of dried berries, an experimental synthetic compound, Loki's magic, three gallons of milk, and a malfunctioning radio. Cleanup took approximately two days, that floor smelled like sour batter for a month, and once Fury got unstuck from the ceiling, he was quoted as saying "...never accepting an invitation to breakfast from those people again."

After the pancake incident, relations between the avengers and Loki improved, and the open hostility dissolved into a series of prank wars which culminated in Thor being glued to the Chrysler building (ironically, by his own teammates, not Loki) and Fury having to completely ban any pranks utilizing supplies beyond those found in a civilian joke shop (he knew better than to ban them outright, after what happened to his office after the immediate post-pancake bans.)


End file.
